


Warmth

by Empatheia



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-11
Updated: 2015-05-11
Packaged: 2018-03-30 00:22:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3916204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Empatheia/pseuds/Empatheia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Birthday cake in Siberia.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Warmth

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Radycat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Radycat/gifts).



> Happy birthday. Thanks for everything.

"How do you know when her birthday is?" Hazel asked curiously, handing her yet another twine-tied balsa box and peering into the shadows behind where it had rested on the shelf.

Piper shrugged. "I don't. We just made one up."

Hazel took the box back, replaced it on the shelf, and grabbed another from a little further down. Rinse, repeat. "I could have sworn it was right around here— Anyway, what made you decide on August 9th?"

"It's not too far off, and no major holidays fall on or near it. It's always a bummer when you share a birthday with a big one like Christmas. We wanted one off in the middle of nowhere so it would be the biggest party around."

With a soft laugh, Hazel moved a few feet further down the row of shelves and paused. "Sound logic. Now, give me a moment to think, if you would."

Piper obediently fell silent. The last ten years had, miraculously, failed to make Hazel harder. All the things they'd been through, all the fire and blood and bronze and gold, had only made her deeper and warmer somehow. Her house in the woods had become a sanctuary and holding house for all things hunted and valuable, and though its defenses were not obvious, she had never had anything stolen from her that she did not immediately get back. Not once. She had a better track record than some Swiss vaults.

Hazel was a witch, and the earth itself was her friend. As if that wasn't enough, her husband was a shapeshifter with the blood of Mars in his veins. Piper thought again that she had made some very good friends.

"Ah, here it is," Hazel said at last, deftly undoing the knots on one of the balsa boxes. "I forgot I'd bound it for safekeeping. Sorry about that."

"I wasn't in a rush," Piper said wryly. "Thank you."

"Why now, out of curiosity?" Hazel asked. "It's been ten years."

Piper shrugged. "We had so much other stuff to do, I forgot my own birthday half the time. I didn't bother with it even when I remembered. We were busy seeing the world and making peace, it didn't seem that important. It doesn't seem that important now, either, I just kind of had the impulse and figured why not, you know?"

Hazel smiled. "I get that. Have fun, now."

She passed the Horn of Plenty's box over to Piper. It was large but very light. The wood was fragrant with the oils Hazel sometimes like to use with her sealing spells.

"Thanks again," Piper said, and left.

She hoped she'd remember to come visit before another ten years passed. Immortality was a strange drug.

***

She found Calypso in Siberia, swathed in furs and facing inland, a little fire at her knees. It was daylight and the middle of summer, so the temperatures were above zero, but not by a whole lot. The restless wind wandering through the taiga smelled faintly of snow already.

The nearest village, according to the maps, was hundreds of miles away south and east. This land was wild in every sense of the world. Nearly untouched by human hands, but vital and alive and full of things with teeth which would sleep through the snows but eat through the summers.

Piper wasn't worried. Calypso would not have trouble with a few bears or wolf packs. She was the daughter of a Titan and she was not afraid of blood. 

She touched the bright silver ring on her right ring finger. It was hot to the touch, not enough to burn but enough to notice. It would calm down when she entered the campsite, she knew. Not much sense in a compass that hurt the holder when they reached its metaphorical far north.

She stopped within the ring of trees surrounding the campsite Calypso had chosen, despite the heat on her finger, and watched for a moment.

Calypso had to know Piper was there, but she gave no indication. She stared into the little fire like it held the secrets of the universe. Though it was nearing nightfall and the temperature was dropping precipitously, her hat sat on a log beside her and her long, long caramel hair spilled down the green back of her thick jacket. Piper couldn't quite see her eyes from this angle, but she could guess; the eternal starless blackness, the mirrored sparks and leaping flames, the gentle inhumanity of that gaze.

Ten years of open access to humanity hadn't changed her as much as Piper had expected. She was still a strange thing, alone even in the midst of a crowd, set apart by the depths of her black eyes and the godly grace of her posture. She loved parties, sometimes, but when she wasn't dancing in the heart of a knot of intoxicated, transported people, she was always somewhere else, somewhere like this. Somewhere untamed, these islands of solitude countless leagues from civilization.

Once a wild thing, always a wild thing.

She loved people, but she loved them like she loved the depths of the sea: something beautiful and mysterious and terrifying, somewhere to visit but not somewhere to live.

Piper leaned against the rough, upright trunk of a young pine and watched for a while longer, until Calypso smiled and raised her gaze.

"Did you find what you went to look for?" she asked.

"Yeah," Piper said. "Took a while, but Hazel never loses anything, she just forgets where she put it."

"Is it my birthday, then?" she asked, laughing now.

"Not quite, but almost," Piper answered, leaving the shelter of the shadows. There was a second stump beside the fire for her to sit on now. Had it always been there? Who knew. Probably, but maybe not. Calypso still had magic Piper hadn't seen yet. "Tomorrow. After midnight."

Calypso looked skyward. "Not long, then."

There had been no clocks on Ogygia. The sunglow on the horizons and her own sense of things served well enough.

"Close enough," Piper said with a shrug, producing the horn out of the Kitfox's trunk. "We'll sleep through half of it anyway."

The Horn did not change visibly in her hands, but she felt it wake up, felt it realize that there was something for it to do here. Out of its little abyss, the goods started appearing as she imagined them.

First and most magnificent: a birthday cake. Layers of soft vanilla angel cake, little interludes of tangerine preserves, vast fields and gardens of whipped cream icing. A great edifice of edible sweetness. Then goblets of white wine, and delicate diced fruits, to accompany it. Lastly, mugs of chamomile tea, to soothe their stomachs and make them sleepy.

"Happy birthday," Piper said when at last they had conquered the little feast.

Calypso turned on her little wooden stool to face Piper. Her hands came up to touch Piper's face, move into her hair, pull her closer. "Thank you," she murmured, and kissed Piper with the taste of tea and cream and tangerines still lingering in the corners of her mouth.

The wilderness did not love them, but it did not need to. They had enough to keep each other warm.


End file.
